Learning Center

Clinical research is key to evaluating the safety and efficacy of therapeutic interventions.

Large datasets of patient information can be extremely useful during a pandemic.

Efforts by physicians to engage vulnerable patient populations may be met with deep skepticism and mistrust.

Decisions to allocate scarce resources should not be based on non-medical criteria, such as judgments about a patient’s social worth.

Caring for patients at the end of life is a privilege that draws deeply on physicians’ commitment to alleviate suffering.

Access to unproven, experimental treatments by individuals who are unable or unwilling to participate in clinical trials of new interventions raise ethical concerns.

Search for effective treatments can move swiftly during a pandemic as researchers and institutions mount studies to test plausible therapies.

Physicians’ dual obligations to serve both the well-being of their individual patients and that of other patients and the community at large come into sharp tension in a public health emergency.

During times of extraordinary need, would it be appropriate to involve medical students in providing direct patientcare to supplement the physician workforce?

Physicians have a well-recognized duty to provide care even at risk to oneself during a public health emergency.